Ana Prvački | The New Institute
Ana Prvački - Apis Gropius , 2021-2022
By Antonia Lagemann
Ana, you have a very close emotional connection to bees—how come?
I come from a family of beekeepers. When my great-great-grandmother married my great-great-grandfather, she brought bees as her dowry. So everyone in my family has been beekeepers for many generations. I learned beekeeping with my grandfather, and when he passed away he left me with five hundred kilos of honey.
How and when did it take on such significance in your work?
When my grandfather died, I was pregnant, and I became really obsessed with bees. I started reading and doing research, looking at the science and theology, but also bee colony collapses—and I studied the history of bees and pollination. It turned into my passion. I just love bees. And you know what? Bees don’t really need us, like most of nature. But we need bees: without pollination our life and our evolution would have been completely different.